the big room in the middle. It had padded walls and a soft,
thick carpet, and all the chairs and tables were padded. There wasn't a
single thing in it that anyone could hurt itself with.

'What ever's this for?--lunatics?' asked Cyril.

The lady looked very shocked.

'No! It's for the children, of course,' she said. 'Don't tell me that in
your country there are no children's rooms.'

'There are nurseries,' said Anthea doubtfully, 'but the furniture's all
cornery and hard, like other rooms.'

'How shocking!' said the lady;'you must be VERY much behind the times in
your country! Why, the children are more than half of the people; it's
not much to have one room where they can have a good time and not hurt
themselves.'

'But there's no fireplace,' said Anthea.

'Hot-air pipes, of course,' said the lady. 'Why, how could you have a
fire in a nursery? A child might get burned.'

'In our country,' said Robert suddenly, 'more than 3,000 children are
burned to death every year. Father told me,' he added, as if apologizing
for this piece of information, 'once when I'd been playing with fire.'

The lady turned quite pale.

'What a frightful place you must live in!' she said. 'What's all the
furniture padded for?' Anthea asked, hastily turning the subject.

'Why, you couldn't have little tots of two or three running about in
rooms where the things were hard and sharp! They might hurt themselves.'

Robert fingered the scar on his forehead where he had hit it against the
nursery fender when he was little.

'But does everyone have rooms like this, poor people and all?' asked
Anthea.

'There's a room like this wherever there's a child, of course,' said the
lady. 'How refreshingly ignorant you are!--no, I don't mean ignorant,
my dear. Of course, you're awfully well up in ancient History. But I see
you haven't done your Duties of Citizenship Course yet.'

'But beggars, and people like that?' persisted Anthea 'and tramps and
people who haven't any homes?'

'People who haven't any homes?' repeated the lady. 'I really DON'T
understand what you're talking about.'

'It's all different in our country,' said Cyril carefully; and I have
read it used to be different in London. Usedn't people to have no homes
and beg because they were hungry? And wasn't London very black and
dirty once upon a time? And the Thames all muddy and filthy? And narrow
streets, and--'

'You must have been reading very old-fashioned books,' said the l